* Posts by vincent himpe

802 publicly visible posts • joined 13 Aug 2006

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Linux: this year's silver lining?

vincent himpe
Paris Hilton

@dyslectic NarC (Mark)

Learn how to read , then maybe you will find the support phone numbers. ( and be able to write names correclty.)

I stated 'it is psychologically'. Most people that need (legal) software go to a store , browse through the shelves and buy something from a well known brand. Maybe that's not the case where you come from , but it is where i live.

No matter how you twist it, fact remains that 9/10 of the stuff out there (hardware) has no drivers for linux, and, for most of the stuff you need to interact with there is no linux solution. You know there is other people outside you in the world. Those voices you keep hearing are not figments of your imagination. Most of these 'other people' do not run linux.

First thing that needs to be done is to convince hardware and software vendors to port their stuff to linux. When that is done , linux will take over. Then you will have a real choice of operating system, because you will not be restricted to what can run on what and what works with what.

vincent himpe

unless

People can go to a store , buy a computer with linux pre installed , and browse through the shelves and look at all the boxed software that runs on Linux, that comes with nice self deploying installers , a manual and a phone nu,ber you can caall for help ( i know its psychologically). it will NEVER get an inrush on the desktop.

Something that fails to register with all the afficionados is that people are in a mindset : we go to a store , buy a computer and some software. This stuff is made by a big company . if it doesn't work we can get our money back, or there is a helldesk we can call.

If i produce something using this machine i can give this to someone else who can open the file.

A very simple example. I want to buy a computer new computer so i can store my pictures from my nice camera , sort them , and use some software to make a nice photobook to have printed by snapfish or picaboo or mypublisher. I will then burn a couple of DVD's with slideshows using either Nero or Pinnacle studio. And also print some locally on my nice inkjet printer

Linux is not an option. Simply because :

- There is an oddball collection of stuff out there on the web that all does bits and pieces , some only work on distro so andd so , some are dependent on package so and so.

- printer drivers ? try finding a hardware manufacturer that provides drivers for linux ...

- all popular on-line printing software out there is written for windows. Wherever you go the answer is . sorry windows only.

- some nice software like pinnacle studio or premiere elements ? sorry.

the only other option is : get an overpriced Mac...

no thank you i will stick to windows.

Don't shout at your disk drives, warns Sun engineer

vincent himpe

To paraphrase Beldar Conehead

Sure, and let me know when elvis gets here ...

Android runs (on) free(runner)

vincent himpe
Alert

@e & Alex rose

You miss my point. IT'S A PHONE ! First thing it has to be able to do is answer a call and make a call correctly. Everything else is eye candy , bling and nice to have.

Look at all the cell phones that had monochrome digit only or minimalistic displays. They seldomly crashed, had no OS. The Mobira Talkman ran on a CDP1802 processor with an executable program of roughly 12Kilobyte ... and it always worked.

It just seems to me that now you need 120 million transistors and 5 megs of code to turn on a lightbulb ... Everything is so over engineered ( and shoddiliy because everyone is desperate to be first to market) that nothing works right anymore. It's the bling that gets all the attention, while the base isn't ready yet.

vincent himpe
Coat

far more reliable ... (david hicks)

i laughed so hard coffee came out my nose.

Quote : it doesn't work properly, bluetooth doesn't work in the later releases, though there is now a software keyboard so you can at least answer a call. GPRS doesn't work, as far as I can tell. WiFi neither. The system won't switch off. Sometimes it doesn't recover from suspend.

However, the software is far more reliable and responsive ....

its a phone that cant even perform the basic phone functions very well ( like answering a call )

If architects would design buildings like open source code.. the first woodpecker that came along would destroy civilisation...

Mine is the one with the samsung blackjack that has the blueman group 'chicken' ringtone.

Microsoft plague threatens 30GB Zune extinction

vincent himpe

laugh all you want.

i got a zune + dock + fm transceiver cheap when compusa went out of business. Ripped it apart , After some soldering and a dab of hot glue here and there i built it into the car (sits underneath the cneter console. Entire thing is hidden. Plays through cars sound system. Works perfectly.

Try that with those ipods. You can't even hack the hardware on those. Its all 'proprietary'.

The original zune is a Toshiba player in disguise. All standard parts.

If you can fart, you can earn $10,000

vincent himpe

iChicken

I want the 'chicken' ringtone that the Blue Man Group used in their tour.

Walmart's Jesus Phone no better, no worse

vincent himpe
Coat

cheapskates

tss. what has the world come to. It used to be that only wealthy people could afford a 600$ iPhone. You could flash it in front of someone , people would kiss the ground you walked on.

People would marvel at the sght of one. ( You could say to people : i distinctly saw you marvel at my iPhone. Jes, the iPhone used to be fit for the emperor of Queppu )

Now every lowlife can buy one at wallfart. There is nothing anymore that makes them stand out.

Maybe it's time for Prada to release a new one.

Last major VHS supplier ejects from tape biz

vincent himpe

a cr@p movie stays a cr@p movie , even on blu-ray

I watch one or 2 movies a week. Get them through netflix. The ones i like i buy . And the only thing worth buying this year was Wall-e. All the rest was only worth renting, watching , and mark it off the list.

As for the movies i really like, i strongly doubt they will ever bring Laurel and Hardy movies to blu-ray.

US.gov questions DNS liberalisation plans

vincent himpe

Good !

Allow cyrillic character immediately.. That way it easier to filter all dubious sites. If it is not using western script : block it !

Microsoft gives XP another four months to live

vincent himpe

@greg

Stuff i use at home: Adobe Premiere in conjunction with a Matrox RTx2 for video editing .

Various microcontroller devtools that use USB based JTAG probes. None of those work right (under wine). Altera Quartus.

Stuff i use professionally: Various high end cad software. Some variants are flavor x of linux only, others are flavor y only. Others are windows only. I would need at least 3 different Os's to keep everything running. Same software is all available for, and runs happily on win XP. And the really high end stuff i use is solaris-only anyway. Simply run an xterm on win Xp.

There is a wildgrow of linux distros these days. It's almost monty pythons twit race... They all take off in different directions. It is too much hassle to keep everything running and in working order. The computer is a tool for me , just like a screwdriver and a soldering iron is. some people like making their own screwdrivers and soldering irons, or making adapters to fit a tip from manufacturer x on an iron from y. That's all fine. I am not interested. I just buy the tool i need. Right now , linux and MacOs have nothing to offer that i can use. ( Yes, i have 2 linux boxes. One is a lamp server to run a documentation wiki. Fine. works flawless. The other one is the 'toy' machine. But for everyday productive usage ? sorry its XP.. ( And maybe in the future win7. Vista i am not interested in. I have a lpatop with Vista and a media centre running vista. and that is fine. But there is too much annoyances in vista like dimming screens every time some stupid program wants to poll for an update.

I wish they would make a univeral updating mechanism that every program has to adhere to. A program would simply enter the URL where the ehceck has to be done. A central updater can then go and grab self deploying updaters from those URL's. There would be 1 little icon in the system tray 'there are updates available'. When you click it opens a box that show the list of avaialble updates. Like the updater in ubuntu. That is actually a useful tool.

vincent himpe

@get a mac and 'just use linux'

maybe that's what ill do .. once there is actually software for it. None of the software i use runs on those platforms. I pick the OS in function of the applications i run , not the other way around...

vincent himpe

@joe earl: vista has annoyances

every frickin 5 minutes the screen dims and that uac pops up. 'wa wa wa wants to perform an update check allow-deny' ( replace wawawa with adobe acrobat , hp printer driver , java , flash , and a ton of other things. )

Every time i boot the computer i have to sit through that. and then when i am browsing the web the adobe and flash things come to annoy me too. There should at least have been a button ALLOW-ALWAYS. Just like on a firewall. you set the rules once. But no , you have to be bugged contonuously by this pest.

Apart from that. Vista is pretty stable.

Just file copying could be a lot faster. it takes forever to move large files. I have 2 identical machines ( one with vista one with xp. copying a memroy card from my camera. is 3 times faster on xp than on vista. Vista absolutely wants to catalog , extract exif data , prepare thumbnails and all kinds of other stuff i do not need right at that moment. just copy the bloody files and get it over with. i have work to do.

Mac OS 10.5.6 problems? Apple suggests shampoo

vincent himpe
Joke

i always thought

apple checksum algorithm looked like this

if (sales_price_of_apple_branded_hardware >= 3 * sales_price_of_generic_kit) then checksum = match. else goto pay_us_some_more_money

Western Digital WD TV HDD-to-HDTV adaptor

vincent himpe

eh ...

How is not being able to play Apple DRM crippled files a problem ? Simply boycott DRM crippled stuff.

And if you want a serious mediaplayer : buy a Tvix6500 or one of the other devices made by Dvico.

Lots of players claim they can handle 1080. Sure they will output in 1080 , but has anyone fed them a true 1080 stream ? Like an M2T stream containing HDV video data ? Most of these small box media players roll over and die if they have to play that , simply because they don't have the horsepower nor the memory needed to tackle it.

NASA will give away old Shuttles for free

vincent himpe

if they

throw in a couple of SRB's and a spare fuel tank.

Has anyone figured out how to run linux on the main computer yet ? If not , no big deal. It runs PL/1 anyway.

Microsoft issues emergency IE patch as attacks escalate

vincent himpe

question is

how did all those sites get the payload installer in the first place ...

Happily using Opera with java and flash turned OFF.

the phishers can phuck off

Apologies after teacher's 'Linux holding back kids' claim

vincent himpe
Coat

she has a point though...

In the real world no software is fully free.... go talk to red hat or novell. Maybe they will give you the os for free, but if you need support they will pull money from each and every orifice in your body..... and they will require you to smile and say things like 'thank you' and 'i am not worthy' when they do it too.

And if you need any kind of decent application that can run on it ... prepare to be ransacked for more money.... novell or oracle db anyone ? tools from cadence and mentor anyone ? solidworks ? SAP ? . fill in your own serious business or cad appliaction...

free .... the cost of the hardware/os is NOTHING compared to support costs and cost of applications. 1000$ gets you a good workstation ( quad core + quadro gfx + os of choice ) these days. 99 $ for a wintendo licence is nothing compared to that. And the total system cost is nothing compared to licences that run in the millions every year for the applications.

Plus if there is a major update to your linux you run the risk that half your hardware no longer works because they DELIBERATELY break the api.... i call it sabotage.

And 'free' in the other sense ... whenever you touch something that has open source in it you have to pay a bloody bunch of bloody lawyers to cover your behind. You might just have created something that may fall under GPL or LGPL and you may have to give out the keys to the kingdom... you need a lawyer to translate the legalese. Otherwise you may feel the wrath of the fsf ... I'll take commercial compilers. Those come with a licence to sell whatever i produce with them and the freedom to include whatever libraries come with a licence. ( and yes i have the source to those libraries and can make derivates. )

Its only free for hobbyists. they can install distros to their hearts content.

Yes i play with linux too. Here is my history

- version 0.89 on a 720k floppy was soo cool. look a *nix command prompt...

- the first port of x-server. look man, i have x-eyes on my screen... all you have is win3.1 with a ton of applications

- look i have a cool LAMP based on 6.xx of ubunut. Until an automated update broke the whole config to the point it wuld not boot, and i had to find a way to access the reiserfs volume from a windows pc....

I still have a linux machine. To browse the big bad web. There it shines.

Something to think about : if all people in the world were honest , we would not need virusscanners and spyware removers and we wouldn't need linux or windows ( we'd long time ago had something that works. )

coat please. i have to go boot iRMX now.

Man trademarks ;-) emoticon

vincent himpe

That's what happens

if you drink cheap wodka ... you either go blind or become braindead.

Apple files 3D-interface patent

vincent himpe
Thumb Up

gimme that

forget top and left and right.

the bottom looks perfect. i want an interface without bottom dock or toolbar. when mouse approaches this 3 d things swoops in and shows snapshots of open documents categorized per type. ( kind of like an old filing tray with cards in it ) click on the card and the application and document swoop back into place.

i often have 3 or 4 spreadsheets, 2 or 3 docuemtns and a bunch of pdf's open at the same time (some minimized . instead of haveing to go to a menu to switch or go to the windows bar and read the text on all the buttons to pop them to the foreground i can simply pick them from this 3d tray.

gimme gimme !!! let me at it. this is genius ! ( and yes i am an apple-hater by the way )

Firm touts anti-radiation chip for phones

vincent himpe
Coat

next

tin foil lined hats and lead lined underpants ( against comic radiation )

mines the one next to the sgn that reads 'welcome to the outside of the asylum'

Brute force SSH attack confounds defenders

vincent himpe

simple solution :

Apply scissors to the ethernet cable to your box. Place cable ends 1 inch apart.

I still have to see the first bot leaping over that firewall ...

MIT boffins crack fusion plasma snag

vincent himpe

@big_boomer

can i get you the phone number of Dr Kevorkian ? Maybe you could lead the way ..

Python 3.0 appears, strangles 2.x compatibility

vincent himpe

@mattk

i was making a pun. when MS migrated from VB6 to .NEt they also broke tons of existing stuff. Same with vista: it was supposed to be faster . turned out to be slower and a resource hog. Many 'XP' programs experience trouble when running on vista.

Anyway. Not my problem. I don't use python. I tried it. I didn't like the forced 'indentation' it has. don;t know if that is still so in 3.0. also the lack of good editor ( read an editor that fixes my typos like missing brackets and semicolons. I like the intellisense in visual studio. ) but again. that was like 2 years ago.

vincent himpe
Coat

Maybe GvR is eyeballing a job at Microsoft ..

It's slower and breaks exisiting code. Sounds almost like Vista ....

Mine's the one with the Visual Basic CD in the pocket...

Apple prepping $99 Wal-Mart iPhone?

vincent himpe

oh great ...

more iDiots blabbering on them...

Windows patching abysmal, and getting worse

vincent himpe

hmm

it finds lots of unsafe applications.. albeit nothing wrong with windows..

I guess its time to tackle application software providers , and not microsoft ...

Online payment site hijacked by notorious crime gang

vincent himpe

anyone remebere 'electric dreams'

can we send 100.000 volts to that ip address ? that might solve things....

Apple tells Mac users: Get anti-virus

vincent himpe

look i have a fully secure os...

I also have no applications that run on it.... So i need to install other OS's on my overexpensive hardware.

The only way to protect against viruses coming in over the network is to yank out the network cable and put the antenna of your wireless card in a faraday cage. ( or yank it out ).

vincent himpe

whoa. i just saw a flock of pigs perform a couple of loops and then break the soundbarrier

mac ? visurs and other nasties. That's just unheard of. Besides, isn't it u-nix based. I thought that was immune...

Maybe mac is becoming popular enough that the bad boys have found a new pond to phish in...

French courts tighten iPod tax loophole

vincent himpe

sacrebleu

zere are pieple zat baai zee epod outzide france .. quik quik , letz chaange ze leuw so we can get zeir monee too !

Rootkit unearthed in network security software

vincent himpe

why do i feel uneasy when reading

Chinese security Software .... brrr . chills crawl over my spine...

Icahn! goes! double! or! quits! on! Yahoo!

vincent himpe

new entry in the dictionary ...

Chief yahoo : Blundering Idiot

iPhone developer stoops to straight bribery

vincent himpe
Thumb Down

its a frickin phone !

if you can make a call with it , that's all you need.

in my time phones came with ringtones and hat 7 segment displays ( if they had any display at all )

today people who are already deep in the drink still spend money for ringtones, text messages, wallpapers and 'theme packs'. And then they spend money for an 'animated santa' instead of paying off their mortgage. I'd sue all those bloody phone manufacturers for creating this crap in the first place. It's more costly than tobacco and more addictive.

Parallels 4 users want their money back

vincent himpe

look, it's simple..

if you want a mac, buy a mac, if you want a pc , buy a pc. period. besides, it's good for the economy.

Apple bans iPhone app for changing version number

vincent himpe

please trademark or patent the word 'unlimited

can someone please trademark the 'unlimited' stuff , and then sue all the crap comapnies that sell fake 'unlimited' stuff. Maybe it'll tie them up in litigation long enough so they disappear.

'Jaguar' Cray hypercomputer beats 1.3 petaflops

vincent himpe

i bet

this is a machine that can run an endless loop in just under 4 hours.. Go Cray Go !

Google fixes world's most stupid bug

vincent himpe

pie .. face

nough said...

Circuit City files for bankruptcy protection

vincent himpe
Thumb Down

two fingers to them

i was in one of the closing stores. Their prices were much higher than in non closing stores , and they don't even follow the ads anymore. They wanted to sell me a usb drive for 179 ( after all 'store closing discounts' that non closing stores had on sale for 129 ... When i complained , the answer was : sorry , the closing stores are no longer part of circuit city but belong to a liquidator. Nevertheless they were still waving big plaquards at the corner of the street with the circuit city logo on them. Bunch of tossers.

Sun Java piggybacks Microsoft searchbar, divorces Google

vincent himpe
Flame

no wonder

i saw a whole flock of pigs fly by this morning... After Micro$oft now we also have $un

Yahoo! shares tumble as Ballmer shuts coffin on Microhoo

vincent himpe

two words

dumb ass..

Yes! It's the Darth Vader breakfast toaster

vincent himpe

darth vader is a wussy

if ti would have been Dark Helmet ! may the schwartz be with you

Berlin bans handy iPhone metro app

vincent himpe
Thumb Down

id10-t's

they are now hjust starting to think about maybe develping their own crap.

son;t spend mone on meetings and commitees and coders. just drop half of what you would spend on the preliminary crap intot he hands of these two people that already have a working version. hire them , pay them a salary.

but then of course , al these big paycheck grabbing 'man-agers' would have to find another reason for being employed ...

bunch of tossers.

BOFH: Radiating sincerity

vincent himpe
Joke

dihydrogenmonoxide comes to mind...

time to cash in on the watercoolers ... and the plumbing throughout the buikding, with the price of metal these days .. ka-ching

David Tennant quits Who

vincent himpe

ozzie

i want ozzie osbourne as doctor. Now that would be fun !

Windows 7 borrows from OS X, avoids Vista

vincent himpe

Enough !

with the eye-candy. I don't need fancy new icons and buitton shapes. The buttons in windows 3.11 were fine for me. The added right click features and some smart menus in Win XP are perfect. Just make the overall perfomance a lot better , and give me control over what tasks to run , and when to run them. Move a directory containing 10.000 pictures on Xp takes 5 seconds. On vista it takes hours. Vista needs to re-index all the pictures , mark them off in directory 1 , store them in directory 2 re-dinx them , sends them through the visrus scanner. etc etc etc. while all it has to do is change the root location of the directory. Its changing a node in a linked list for crying out loud!. it's a friggin pointer update for a file system. It should take only a few microseconds to do that. Not hours.

Blu-ray Disc a 'bag of hurt', says Jobs

vincent himpe

bag of hurt...

time for steve to read the licencing agreement for the iPhone devkit. can;t tal about it , can't share code , can;t even write how-to guides. talk about a bag of hurt.

having a slice of your own cake then are we ?

Airport baggage screener charged with stealing passengers' stuff

vincent himpe

penalty ;

stuff guy in luggage , send repeatedly through high dosage xray scanner , then let the baggage loaders toss the suitcase around for a while.

OpenOffice.org overwhelmed by demand for version 3.0

vincent himpe

as long as

it can't run my vba macros i don't want it.

Linux at 17 - What Windows promised to be

vincent himpe

stopping a port

try porting it to a 4004 or 8080 .

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